This invention relates to scripting, including methods of scripting, systems for scripting, and user friendly methods, systems, products, and tools for configuring, reconfiguring, customizing, and enhancing the scripts. This invention particularly relates to end-user (call center or marketing representative) customization and modification of the script contents and/or logic.
Scripting is used for call centers, customer support centers and technical support centers to empower customer service representatives and telesales and telemarketing professionals. Scripts, as used herein, are interactive tools that guide a user, as a telemarketer, a sales person, or a technical support technician through a telephone or in-person/point of sale/point of service interaction with a customer. Scripts are characterized by branching from a question to particular subsequent questions, or to an associated database, as a function of the customer""s answer to a previous question or an output of an associated database, thereby automatically guiding the user-customer dialog while enforcing workflow and the business process.
Scripts are used in a variety of different scenarios from sales to service in the financial, telecommunications, insurance, and retailing industries, among others. Scripts can be used to gather information, disseminate information, create new customers, take orders, etc. Third party outsourced vendors rely heavily on scripts to guide users through a variety of different work flows on different products. Vendors use scripts as a way to ensure that product will be sold and services provided in the manner their customers desire; that is, a manufacturer may contract out its xe2x80x9cHelp Deskxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cTelemarketingxe2x80x9d functions to a vendor, and will therefore find it desirable to provide scripts to enable the vendor to respond to service requests or sales opportunities.
A clear need exists for scripts that interact with underlying associated databases, e.g., inputting data to the databases, extracting data from the databases, and branching in response to both user and/or customer inputs and to data inputs and/or outputs to or from the databases.
Scripts generally require a certain amount of customization and configuration, for example, to the user""s business or business process, and to changes in the metadata and metastructure of any underlying or associated databases. Heretofore, script customization, configuration, and reconfiguration has required a substantial amount of code rewriting and revision, or a substantial amount of software overhead to support a very limited amount of mainly cosmetic customization features.
A clear need exists for a script method and system that facilitates end-user customization, configuration, and reconfiguration with a minimum amount of software overhead and code rewriting.
According to our invention there is provided a system, and method where the underlying software structure is readily configurable and reconfigurable by the user, and utilizes reusable objects (including routines, subroutines, and functions) having data, public functions and variables accessible to the end users, private functions and variables not generally accessible tn end users, and where the product, system, and method can be configured, reconfigured, modified and/or personalized through derived classes or functions that call the public functions of these objects, reusing them and inheriting their properties as in object oriented programming and/or through function and subroutine calls and passing variables as in convention programming.
The invention disclosed herein provides a system for facilitating interaction between a customer and a service provider. The system is configurable and with a set of reusable components, as either reusable objects, data, public functions, and private functions, or routines, subroutines, and functions with global variables and local variables. The public functions, routines, and subroutines, which are callable by an end user, can be accessed through derived classes of objects or calls. The system also includes a script and an associated database.
The script has a hierarchical set of structured pages, with at least one of the pages having a structured set of questions. At least one of the questions has responses that causes the system to either i) link to an associated database, or ii) link to another question in the script. The link may be a query, or the output of the database serving as a link to another question in the script. Where link is input to our output of the database, the data is data related to the interaction.
When the link is a link to another question in the script, the link may be to a question in the same page or a link to another question in another page in the script.
In a further exemplification of the invention, there is provided a system, which may include one or more computers, with computer program code, running on one or more computers, for facilitating interaction between a customer and a service provider. The code is made up of reusable elements such as the objects, functions, and variables of object oriented programming, or the functions, routines, subroutines, global variables, and local variables, and calls of conventional programming paradigms. The computer program code includes a script and an associated database, and causes the system to a) present a question to a user, b) receive a response from the user, and c) branch to link to either i) the associated database, or ii) to another question, both in response to the user""s response to the question.
The computer program code can cause a query of the associated database, and, as a result of the query, cause the database to output a link to another question in the script, or to cause the database to output data related to the interaction. Alternatively, the computer program code cause a link to another question which is in another page in the script.
In the case of object oriented programming language, the computer program code contains base objects containing data, public functions, and private functions, and the computer program code is configured to utilize additional classes of objects inheriting properties of said base objects. However, in the case of such programming languagesd as FORTRAN, BASIC, and the like, the program code contains, functions, routines, and subroutines, and calls, which use global variables to call the functions, routines, and subroutines.
A further aspect of our invention is a method of configuring software adapted for facilitating interaction between a customer and a service provider utilizing a script and an associated database. The method of the invention utilizes reusable components, such as calling a set of reusable objects, data, public functions, and private functions, where the public functions are accessed through derived classes of objects, in object oriented programming, and calling functions, routines, and subroutines in conventional programming.
The script is a set of hierarchicaly structured pages, with at least one of the pages having a structured set of questions, where at least one of the questions has responses, and at least one of the responses causes the system to either i) link to an associated database, or ii) link to another question in the script. The method involves the steps of: (a). presenting a question to a user, (b). receiving a response from the user, and (c). branch in response to the user""s response to the question to link to either i) the associated database, or ii) another question.
The method may include querying the database through the link to the associated database, the output of the database may be a link to another question in the script, or data related to the interaction, or a link to another page in the script.
The method of the invention includes creating either derived objects and calling a set of reusable base objects, data, public functions, and private functions, or calls using functions, routines, and subroutines.
A script is assembled from a set of modular elements. The modular elements are, in increasing order of granularity, the script, one or more pages within the script, one or more questions per page, a set of answers for each question, branching logic from the answer set, and an associated database or databases which input and/or output data in response to questions and/or answers thereto. A script may have a plurality of pages, each such page having a plurality of questions displayed in one view. Each question, in turn, has an answer set, with the answers having branches to other modules, for example, other pages or questions. The scripts of our invention are characterized by branching within and between scripts, pages, and questions. The branching may be driven by a customer""s answer to a question, either alone or in combination with contents of the underlying database or databases.
Modular elements, which are ordered and directed sets of questions, answers, answer-driven branches, and answer driven database accesses, serve to control and guide the employee-customer interaction. This is done by enforcing business processes during the interaction. The questions are logically related questions within the business process. Enforcing business processes through branching and database accesses enables users, as well as call center agents, to interact with customers in a useful and productive manner. With respect to the business process, including control of the business process, and branching, each page preferably has a plurality of questions, with each question being capable of having one or more answers. The modular elements contain objects which may be called by other objects (as functions and variables), that is by calling public functions of a called object. Additionally, the objects permit end-user configuration to control the logical flow of questions, responses, and links.
The method and the system of our invention both provide for verifying one or more of the absence of unreachable pages, unreachable questions, and missing answer branches, and the presence of pages called by the script and translations.
The script method and system of our invention provides for visual representation of questions. The questions may be visually presented to accommodate the agent""s skill level or the desired flow of the script. This allows for controllably revealing of future questions to the telemarketer, user, or customer service technician by revealing the current question, all questions within a page or all questions that will definitely be reached.
A further aspect of the method and system of our invention is the relationship of the script with one or more underlying or associated databases. This provides, among other things, the capability of saving customer answers and/or retrieving customer and/or product or service histories, characteristics, or properties. Customer answers may be saved in an answer table, which requires no configuration and saves all responses for questions that an administrator specifies should be saved. These responses may then be transferred to an associated external application for further analysis. In addition, responses can be directly saved in the business object and/or business component so that it is immediately accessible by the call center agents. Additionally, default answers may be provided, which may be overwritten when conducting the script.
A further aspect of our invention is a method of, and a system for creating, upgrading, configuring, reconfiguring, enhancing, or personalizing customer interaction scripts using object oriented programming tools, methodology and paradigms, for interaction with the associated database. For example the upgraded, enhanced, configured or reconfigured, personalized, or customized script may be based upon the underlying database or databases. The associated database or databases contain customer data, product and/or service data. The internal logic of the script links the databases to the script to enable using the database contents in a dialog with a customer, and in conjunction with the internal logic for linking the pages, questions, responses, branches, database accesses, and database contents together. A further aspect of our invention is the dynamic creation of questions for a script through the script""s interaction with the database or databases.
According to a further aspect of the method and system of our invention, scripts are distributed to users in the field. This distribution may be based upon visibility rules of the users in field. That is, a user in the field may receive only scripts applicable to his or her customer set or product set. In this way, a script may be created that is specific to input from a database of customer data and product data and a specific user""s contact list. The output is both a script that is directly applicable to the customer set, and the user""s xe2x80x9ctask list.xe2x80x9d
The script may include a generic answer table, and a business component field, with the answers including data to be reflected in enterprise""s business data. The scripting method and system of our invention facilitates saving answers to specified questions in an answer table or directly in one or more business component(s) and/or associated databases. In this way, responses can be saved and stored in different business components and business component fields.
The user interface of the desktop may be such as to insure that important questions and data are always visible to the user. This is referred to herein as a dynamic dashboard. Moreover, the desktop view may provide a section of the screen that displays scriptxe2x80x94pagexe2x80x94question treeing and/or scriptxe2x80x94pagexe2x80x94questionxe2x80x94answerxe2x80x94link treeing, in order to enable the user to easily navigate around the script. In addition, a section of the screen may store persistent data about the caller, product interest, owned products, utilized services, and script metrics, for example, such as Time Elapsed and Target Time.
In a preferred embodiment the script is fully integrated among and between the global set of scripts, questions, answers, and database accesses, to allow launching of other views and returning to the script. According to our invention capability is provided to automatically launch scripts from a computer telephony integration (CTI) system, or from underlying code or commands, as in Visual Basic, JavaScript or Visual C++.
The structure of the underlying system and system logic allows re-use of individual pages in multiple scripts. Moreover, the scripting method and system of our invention uses object oriented programming techniques, tools, and paradigms, especially for user configuration and reconfiguration. In this way objects may be created, declaring variables of a provided class or deriving a class, whereby the derived objects inherit properties from the provided or base objects. This facilitates a single location of administration, including pre-, and post-validation and branch handlers.
The method, system, and program of our invention provide a high degree of flexibility to support complex scripting needs, including multi-lingual call scripts supporting multi-lingual call centers, and easy local personalization and modification.
The scripting method and system of our invention facilitates reducing the navigational choices of the call center user by locking the choices into the script user interface and, thereby, enforcing the desired business process and workflow that the organization wishes its users to follow. It further facilitates the ability of end-users and end-user administrators to modify or enhance or personalize the product by creating new objects and inherting properties based on existing or base objects. The scripting method and system of our invention replaces standard forms based user interfaces, with a dynamically generated user interface that uses answers to previous questions and the contents of underlying databases to drive the interaction and lead the user through a series of selected questions.
The scripting method and system of our invention may be presented or augmented in two components, an Agent interface and an Administration interface. The Administration interface allows users to define and link the various elements of a script together. The information about the elements in the script lives in the database, and the Agent interface calls that information.
The method and system of our invention is operable in various scenarios, including, but not limited to (i) a connected standard call center application, (ii) a thin client; (iii) over the World Wide Web or other internet or intranet. The script may be launched from (i) an on screen menu item; (ii) a user response, as when a script is associated with a sales campaign or a specific product; (iii) a CTI screen pop up; and (iv) programmatically from Visual Basic, JavaScript, Visual C++ or other program.
The script responses are saved to the associated database in normalized or denormalized format. By this expedient users are able to access the stored information either for reporting, or calling up from the script at a later point in time. Sections or fields of information in the script may be mapped to business components for automatic save to the database. Users are able to define if those saves occur during the script or at the time of script save. The script system determines the nature of the information coming from the script (i.e. is the database access an insert, an update, etc). Separate tables from the standard business components may exist to accommodate these requirements. In a further interaction with the underlying database or databases, administrators and/or users are able to access standard sets of information from business component databases. These standard sets of information include product information, contact names, and any type of custom lookup.
Scripts are able to launch customized VB or JavaScript code and any other scripting language from anywhere in the script. This code can be used to do any number of actions surrounding the workflow and configuration of the script. Users are able to store the code in the scripting tables or the standard location for code/programs.
The scripting method and system of our invention are able to generate dynamic text for the user. For example, an entire block of text (i.e. something a user says to a customer) might be dynamic and driven from a source other than the scripting metadata. Another example would be to insert a name dynamically into a sentence, or change the wording based on time of day, etc.
The scripting method and system of our invention may be described and illustrated in terms of its scripting metadata. Scripting metadata includes information about the script itself, and, optionally, the underlying databases. The metadata can include a wide range of data about the script, from what the interface looks like and how it should behave, through logical branches in the script, to sites of database access including the type of database access (read, write), the database fields accessed, data about the database data, and such metadata as internal and external links, graphics, data structures, and the like. The metadata shows table that are hierarchically arranged with clear relationships between the script members.
The Figures
The method and system of our invention may be understood by reference to the Figures appended hereto.
FIG. 1 shows a script, with three Pages depending from it. Each Page has text questions depending from it. In turn, each question has answers depending from it. The answers provide branches to other questions.
FIG. 2 illustrates the relationships between the elements of a script. In FIG. 2, L represents the unique links between each of the elements.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating the flow paths of a scripted customer interaction, in the case of a call to a potential buyer of a pager.
FIG. 3a is a partial illustration of FIG. 3.
FIG. 3b is a partial illustration of FIG. 3.
FIG. 4 illustrates the script structure and logical relationships of a telephone service or telephone marketing script, with the scriptxe2x80x94pagexe2x80x94questionxe2x80x94answer hierarchy.
FIG. 5 illustrates the procedural connections between major database objects or script elements, including styles.
FIG. 6 illustrates one form of a user window in the scripting method and system of our invention.
FIG. 7 illustrates the administrator""s view of the script method and system of out invention.
FIG. 8 shows a screen shoot of the page designs of the invention with the questions and the branches out of the questions.
FIG. 9 shows a screen shoot of the verification screen of the invention.
FIG. 10 shows a system of the invention.